Innovation Explorer 2018: Innovation culture, Innovation policies

Innovation State of Mind: Public Policies for Innovation is the theme of the fourth edition of the
Innovation Explorer Day forum which will be held on 22.02.2018 at the Sofia Event Center.
Lecturers from Amazon, Google, Facebook, Ocado, Microsoft, Challenge Prize Center, New
York University's (NYU) Stern School of Business and others will comment on the role of
business in shaping policies for innovation, innovation and smart changes in the environment.
The difference this year is that the forum will be in line with the context of Bulgarian Presidency
of the Council of the EU in 2018 and we will look for the "secret ingredient" of the success of the
countries known for their progress in innovation.

Opening lecturer of the forum will be Professor Arun Sundararajan, author of the best-selling
book “The Sharing Economy”. He is a lecturer at New York University and Stern School of
Business, a lecturer at the International Economic Forum, one of the most cited economists in
recent years in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Wired, Le Monde,
Bloomberg View, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Economic Times, LiveMint, Harvard Business
Review , Knowledge@Wharton and Quartz.

The highlights of the speakers' presentations will be on people's thinking and attitudes and how
those change from passive to experimental. Let's see where positive thinking will emerge (Barry Brand, Innovation Director at Saatchi & Saatchi), Technologies for the benefit of people who challenge state regulation (Jim Fanning, Director of Central and Eastern Europe at Amazon Web Services, Gabriela Cech, Director of Public Policies for Central and Eastern Europe at Facebook, Stephanie Fastre, Head of Innovative and Creative Programs for Google
Employees), Process automation and innovation as a process (Paul Clarke, Ocado Technology
Chief Technology Officer, Matt McBride, SoftServe Vice President, Olivier Usher, director
research programs in PrizeCenter) and many more.

The other two "ingredients" of the innovative culture - the massive global thinking and the
ambition for change that together with the positive attitude have the power to change the energy of a whole community, will be seen in Dex Torick-Barton's presentations, who is well known by the audience of Innovation Explorer from this year's edition. Barry Brand, Levent Korkmaz and Karina Karagaeva will play with the term "digital happiness." Guests of the forum will be able to choose from four workshops this year:
• Innovate your mindset, with facilitator Karina Karagaeva
• Inclusive Design, with facilitator Matt McBride
• Strategic Design, with facilitator Levent Korkmaz,
• Winning Potential Investors, with facilitator Hristo Kassovski

The main suggestion of the forum in 2018 will be for a new management of our expectations.
The environment has a great impact on people's behavior and their innovative thinking, and the
stimulation of creative thinking, the acceptance of new ideas, even the time spent on innovation,influence the innovation capacity of every person in one country.

Hence, the food elements are not accidental: Food for Thought is our literal and metaphorical
message to you: to innovate, we need to think about innovation and live with the attitude of
change here and now and in the future. This year we expect over 1200 guests and lecturers
from 12 countries.

Innovation Explorer 2018 is organized with the general support of: Unicredit
Bulbank, VISA and in cooperation with: Microsoft, Questers, SoftServe, ICAP and
others.

More details about Innovation Starter: this is the first Bulgarian innovation agency to
implement business, public and educational projects to change the environment and
innovation culture in our country. Innovation Starter organizes practical trainings and
consultations to introduce marketing students, advertising and business development
students, trade companies, non-profit enterprises, state institutions and start-up
companies to the principles of: building a long-term culture of innovation;
consistent inventive thinking and its methodologies; tools for generating innovative
ideas; working with specific cases to innovate and revise products, services and
processes; consulting and analysis of a portfolio of products and services, business
development; application of the principles of inventive thinking in internet projects.